After the war Putnam became interested in the settlement of the Western lands, and in 1786 he helped found the Ohio Company of Associates with the purpose of obtaining a land grant in the Ohio country for settlement by veterans of the American Revolution. The company obtained a grant from Congress of 1,500,000 acres (606,000 hectares) there, and Putnam was appointed the company superintendent of the colonizing activities. In 1788 he led a small party that founded Marietta, Ohio; this was the first white settlement in the Northwest Territory.

Map of the Ohio Company of Associates’ purchase of land in the Ohio River valley (c. 1787), …

Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection (www.ohiomemory.org)

Putnam afterward served as a territorial judge in Ohio and as a brigadier general before being appointed surveyor general of the United States in 1796; his service in this post was less than satisfactory, however, owing to his deficiency in mathematics, and in 1803 he was dismissed by President Thomas Jefferson. In 1802 he served as a member of the Ohio state constitutional convention.

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